Lord Coe admits ticket system for London 2012 Olympics is 'not perfect'

• 60% of applicants will be charged by midnight on Wednesday
• 'There is no ticket process on this scale – this is extraordinary'

Lord Coe says the ballot system employed by Olympic organisers was the fairest way of distributing the 6.6m London 2012 tickets on sale to the British public. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images Matthew Lewis/Getty Images for Laureus

Lord Coe has defended the ticketing process for the 2012 Olympics, with organisers saying the majority of applicants will see money go out of their accounts by midnight on Wednesday.

The Locog chairman admitted the system was "not perfect" and "was always going to be a challenge" but said the ballot system employed by organisers was the fairest way of distributing the 6.6m tickets on sale to the British public.

"There is no perfect system. There is no ticket process on a scale like this, this is extraordinary," said Coe.

Locog initially said it would begin the process of debiting the accounts of successful applicants on 10 May, beginning with those who had paid by cheque or postal order before moving on to the vast majority who handed over credit or debit card details.

It then said the process would begin on 16 May, promising to have charged 60% of the 1.8m applicants by Wednesday. A spokeswoman said it was still on track to do so by midnight, despite evidence that very few people have seen money go out of their accounts.

Coe also defended the decision not to publicise the fact that British buyers could theoretically get tickets on a first come, first served basis from some authorised overseas suppliers. Speaking at the nationwide launch of Sported, a community sports fund established by the Locog deputy chairman, Sir Keith Mills, Coe argued that it was right that those tickets were marketed to local customers, despite the fact that they had to be made available across the continent under European law.

"The stuff about overseas applications is nothing new. How do you think 15,000 Brits went to Athens to watch Team GB? That's the nature of it. We have 8.8m tickets and about 1m of them go overseas," he said, voicing fears that the attention given to the overseas resellers – which only have a relatively small allocation – could lead people to inadvertently buy tickets from online fraudsters. The real message is don't get spooked into looking for tickets on websites out there. Don't be tempted to go to a website you're unsure of."

Organisers emailed on Tuesday all applicants to say the "vast majority" of payments would be taken by 31 May and explaining that anyone who paid by cheque – and so had to pay in full for all tickets – and was due a refund of more than £1,000 would receive it by 10 June. All other refunds would be processed "within five working days" of funds clearing, it said. Those who paid by postal order will receive a letter to explain the refund process.

Mills, who has invested £10m of his own money into Sported, also defended the process. Another criticism has been the fact that Locog plans to debit the accounts of successful applicants before June 10 but has only resolved to tell people which tickets they have got by 24 June.

"We have devised the fairest possible system we can given that we are selling millions and millions of tickets. When the process has been completed I think the public will realise they've had a really fair shot at getting a ticket for the Games. Once we've completed this first round there will still be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of tickets to go for. People shouldn't be concerned they've missed the boat," he said.

Coe also hit back at critics of the plan to give those who applied but missed out altogether the first opportunity to try for those that remain. The email on Tuesday also explained the "second chance sales" process, through which those who get no tickets will get first refusal on those left. Anyone else who applied in the initial sales phase will then also be offered another opportunity before tickets go back on general sale in November.

Some have argued it mitigates against those who followed the advice to be prudent and apply for less popular events alongside marquee tickets that have attracted more than 1m applications, such as the 100m final and the opening ceremony.

"If you were in that system and you created a basket, you were clearly organised and wanted to get tickets. So I think it is right that those who didn't get anything but were in the system should be given first opportunity," said Coe.

Mills said Sported, a new charity that aims to support a nationwide network of existing grassroots sport projects that deliver social benefits to young people, would provide a support system and resources for thousands of small projects around the country.

"Over the last two or three years it has become even more difficult for them as public money is taken out of the system. We decided we could provide an umbrella, a business angels type structure that would provide some money but also help via mentors and volunteers," said Mills, who created Nectar and Airmiles before becoming chief executive of London's Olympic bid.

He said the charity would aim to attract government funding, providing a more effective means to invest Sport England's lottery and exchequer funds, as well as offering sponsors a route to invest in community sport beyond the Olympics. He said that it would invest between £30m and £40m a year in community sports projects.

"Sport England have found it very difficult. It's hard for them to manage hundreds or thousands of tiny projects. You need an infrastucture and that's what we'll put in place."

Coe, who helped win the Games for London on the basis of the legacy it would leave behind for sport and east London, said Sported was one of a number of examples that showed it would deliver.

A Conservative thinktank report this week challenged that view, concluding that "the legacy promise will come in time to be viewed as a highly effective sales pitch that was never fully realised."

The Centre for Social Justice said: "The scale of the challenge that the Olympic organisers have set themselves is too high for the relatively limited amounts of funding and the programmes that have been promised, to deliver successfully."

But Coe insisted the evidence on the ground was that the Olympics was already delivering a sports legacy, particularly for young people, even if the story was not yet being told coherently enough.